Get off the Fence chaps - time to decide!

Dear Bob, Rob and Tony too...

As you chaps enter your final days of consideration as to which government you'd like to give your blessing to, I thought I'd do you the favour of trying to sum up your dilemma because I'm sure its been a very confusing fortnight for you all.

1.  You've put at the top of your list "stable and competent government".  Well, consider the following: 

  • with the Greens locked-in in a formal "a-green-ment", not only does that give the  ALP a 73rd seat in the House of Reps, but from July it also gives them complete   control of the Senate.
  •   with Wilkie locked in also, that gives them a 74th seat meaning that with all three of your votes included, that would give the ALP a spare seat at 77.
  • (at first I thought this was a week point but now...) The ALP have a three line whip and can be depended on to keep party voting discipline much better than the Coalition, who don't.
  • with Tony Crook, the Coalition have a loose canon.  A National who unseated a Liberal in the seat of O'Connor, he has said he won't necessarily vote with the Coalition and while he does agree on some topics, he can't be fully counted on to vote along party lines.  He's a renegade.

2. You said that you want to work with a party you can trust.  Well consider the very first request you made: that election promises be submitted to Treasury for costing.  What was the Coalition's first reaction? "No." Then when they did finally submit them, hey presto: a $7-11 billion black hole!  When quizzed about it, both Rob and Hockey put it down merely to a "difference of opinion".  So: non-cooperative, incompetent, lacking integrity and arrogant too - is this who you want to be working with? (Lara Tingle in the AFR said this alone made them unfit to govern.)

Then consider the Coalition's negotiation with Wilkie.  He mentioned that a priority of his was a new hospital for Hobart.  Bang! $1 billion suddenly appears on the table - from where?  With their election promises already out by $7-11 billion, does this extra billion taken that to 8-12? Furthermore, when asked by Tony Jones on Lateline if that billion remained on the table for Hobart if the Coalition did make government, Andrew Rob said it would.  The following day his colleague Joe Hockey said it would not and that Wilkie had "cost Hobart a hospital" by going with Labor.  That is either deliberately duplicitous, or Rob and Hockey can't communicate.  Competant? Trustworthy?

3. On policy, you've said that you want to bring the bush to the national agenda.  Let me list the key acronyms we need to think about in the bush: NBN, RSPT, ETS.  Who can deliver those and who can't?  Broadband for the bush, environmental protection and infrastructure spending.   Even another acronym: BER.  While poorly delivered admittedly, this was a government investing in schools.  With super clinics, they are investing in health too.  What are the Coalition planning? Cuts.  Afteral what is government money for? Sitting on?  Or spending?

4. We should also think about what the people wanted.  Preferred Prime Minister? Gillard.  If the Liberal/National Coalition is actually right, and the Labor/Green alliance is a new "coalition", then in both primary AND two-party preferred, the Labor/Green Coalition is by far and away the people's choice for government and Julia Gillard their choice for PM.  So it could be construed as your duty to put them into government.

Also - remember all three of you actually left the National Party for a reason!  Are you sure you want to join up again, because that's in effect what you'd be doing by backing an Abbott Government - resuming your metaphical seats on the National Party backbenches.

This second election, with an electorate of just the three of you, has been fascinating.  It's been far more interesting than the phony five week farce we sat through prior to the poll.  It's focussed on what the issues actually are, rather than idiocy like stopping the boats.  It's focussing on health, it's focussed on pokies, it's focussed on the economy.  I think we are all agreed that Gillard fully lost the phony election, but Abbott has easily lost the real election.

Finally, perhaps this advice I saw on a church notice board I passed in Rozelle: "vote for the one with the smallest gap between what they say and what they do."  I think that should help you frame your decision. 

 I eagerly await your verdict, best of luck! 

P.S. Try and stick together too! Mr Katter, if you back Abbott and the other two put Gillard into Government, then Kennedy will get nada from a Gillard Government!